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CNN International: McCarthy Voted Out, Unclear Who Will Replace Him; Biden Urges House To Quickly Elect A Speaker; E.U. Leaders Reiterate Support For Ukraine After Call With Biden; At Least 21 Dead After Bus Plunges From Bridge Near Venice; PM Sunak Scraps High-Speed Rail Project; Five Dead, 23 Missing In India Following Flash Floods; Indian Police Raid Homes Of Dozens Of Journalists. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired October 04, 2023 - 08:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[08:00:30]

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to CNN Newsroom. I'm Max Foster in London.

Just ahead, an unprecedented ouster. Republican U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is out after hardline members of his own party turned on him. We'll bring you the very latest on what happens next in Washington.

And the world, particularly Ukraine, the war-torn nation will be closely watching with the future of essential U.S. aid hanging in the balance. Plus, tragedy in Venice after tourist bus crashed off an overpass. Details on the investigation coming up.

Well, the U.S. House of Representatives is in uncharted waters. Paralyzed after Kevin McCarthy was ousted from his job as speaker. The California Republican was removed from his post in a Tuesday vote. The first time that's ever happened following a revolt from a far-right faction within his own party.

The House is now in recess until next week as Republicans scramble to figure out what to do next. Legislation cannot be brought to the floor until a new speaker is elected. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking on a mid-November deadline for Congress to reach an agreement on a spending bill to keep the government open.

Let's go right to CNN's Eva McKend in Washington. So, the place is pretty much paralyzed at the moment.

EVA MCKEND, CNN U.S. NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: It is, Max. This is truly a remarkable time in America's history, as this has never happened before. It seems like the Republican conference is mulling over several contenders, but given how difficult it was to elect McCarthy in the first place, this new speakership election just next week could also be a lengthy affair.

So here's who we're looking at, Louisiana Congressman Steve Scalise, that was McCarthy's deputy. Very well-liked by both the moderate and far-right wing of the party. But he has some health issues, so that's going to be a factor.

Congressman Tom Emmer of Minnesota. He ran the reelection arm for House Republicans, and is being discussed as well. Another name in the mix, Jim Jordan. He's long known as a firebrand. He's been able to pivot, though, recently, and straddle proximity to leadership and the favor of the far-right wing of the party. He chairs the powerful Judiciary Committee and is a Trump ally.

But to be clear, Max, Republicans will need to elect a new speaker to resume the business of Congress, most critically to avert a potential government shutdown next month.

FOSTER: OK. Eva in Capitol Hill, thank you so much.

Now, as Republicans grapple to replace the speaker, the White House says President Joe Biden hopes House lawmakers will quickly elect a replacement because of the urgent challenges facing the nation. At the same time, sources say the White House is aiming for the President to strike a tone of business as usual to counter the chaos on Capitol Hill.

For more on this, let's bring in Arlette Saenz at the White House. I mean, just take us through the White House reaction to all of this and how they can really try to pretend that things are normal there.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Max, President Biden is really refraining from weighing in on the specifics and the thoughts behind this speaker's race. The White House simply urging the House to quickly elect a speaker since there are urgent challenges that still need to be met. But what this does is it gives the President an opportunity to further draw a contrast with the Republican wing up on the House.

You have seen over the course of the past few weeks, the White House trying to present this split screen of what the President is doing and some of the chaos that has ensued including over that government shutdown debate. But today, the President will be focusing on his efforts to offer further student debt -- student loan debt relief to the American public. They'll be announcing about 9 billion in additional relief today.

But it also comes at a time where there are a host of challenges that the White House will have to grapple with with a new speaker, including how to fund the government with that deadline approaching just six weeks away, and also concerns about further aid for Ukraine. That is something that the White House has been stressing needs to happen in the days since that government funding bill was passed.

The President had suggested that he believed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ready to put up a separate vote on that matter. And one big question going forward is how a future speaker would handle additional aid to Ukraine.

[08:05:07] The White House is confident that there is that support amongst Republicans, amongst Republican leadership, but it will certainly depend on who becomes speaker and what path forward they decide to chart. So those are some of the challenges facing this White House as this speaker's race is playing out.

But for today, the President is going to stick to business as usual, stick to trying to promote the policies that he is putting into place. We have seen his campaign and the Democratic National Committee really try to draw some of the political contrast right now with House Republicans saying that while the president was focused on doing the work, that's -- the Republicans have been focused on trying to undue their own party, their own speakership up in the House.

FOSTER: OK, Arlette, thank you.

Kyiv is watching the developments in Washington with concern while Ukraine's embassy in Washington says it has built a good constructive dialogue with many likely candidates for House Speaker McCarthy's removal casts a dark cloud over an already troubled process of military and financial aid for Ukraine.

E.U. leaders reiterated their support for Kyiv following a phone call with U.S. President Joe Biden. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc's support is unwavering having pledged a $52 billion four-year aid plan in June.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen is in eastern Ukraine and joins us now. The reality though is that as things stand, the money coming from America could be running out and it's the biggest financer of this war for Ukraine.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The biggest financer by far, and I think there are two main concerns, Max, that the Ukrainians have. On the one hand, whether or not there could be delays in funding for Ukraine, which they urgently need to continue some of the offensive operations that they have going on in the east and the south of the country.

But, of course, in general, the war effort that is on against Russia, which, of course, needs a lot of resources just to generally keep going. And then, of course, the big question is, depending on who the next house speaker is going to be. Is there generally going to be a more negative attitude towards aid for Ukraine?

Of course, we know that some of the more hard line folks in the -- on the Republican side of the U.S. Congress, certainly very much averse to further aid for Ukraine. So a lot very much up in the air was quite interesting to see that statement from Ukraine's embassy in D.C. saying that they already in contact with the possible successors to Kevin McCarthy.

But here on the ground, Max, the soldiers that are fighting on the ground already fear that all this could have massive repercussions. We talked about the fact that the Ukrainians need obviously a lot of things to keep their war effort running. But one of the main things that they need is ammunition, especially artillery ammunition, 155 millimeter and 105 millimeter artillery ammunition.

And The U.S. is by far the largest supplier of that. However, that is the kind of ammunition where, at least in the short run, other NATO members, European NATO members could possibly come in and least make up for some of those shortfalls. But there is, of course, also more specialized ammunition the Ukrainians also need, like, for instance, for those HIMARS multiple rocket launching systems.

And as far as that's concerned, the U.S. is pretty much the only game in town as far as providing those. So, if the funding for that is delayed or dries up, that certainly could mean big issues for the Ukrainians. The other things that a lot of people are looking at is also ammunition or rockets for surface to air missile systems that, of course, very important for the Ukrainians to keep their cities and their critical infrastructure safe, especially as we head into winter, and we've been reporting on the fact that the Russians have increased their attacks on critical infrastructure.

Of course, something that we saw last year in winter as well, where the Russians essentially were trying to freeze the Ukrainians into submission, for instance, by hitting power plants. So a lot of concerns on the part of the Ukrainians about whether or not they're going to be able to sustain some of those offensive operations.

But then in the longer term, also, whether or not the U.S. in general is going to become more difficult and more negative towards aid to Ukraine because of what is going on in U.S. Congress and possibly also who the next speaker of the House of Representatives might be back. Max?

FOSTER: OK, Fred in Ukraine, thank you.

Now, authorities in northern Italy are investigating the cause of a bus crash that killed at least 21 people and injured 18 others near Venice on Tuesday night. Two children and the driver are amongst the victims. Italian police say they haven't identified all of the bodies yet. The bus was carrying mainly tourists and it was on its way to a campsite when it plunged from a bridge and caught fire.

CNN's Ben Wedeman joins us live from Rome. I know that the municipality has released some video of what happened as well. It really is a horrendous scene.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's fairly disturbing video. I mean, what you see and you're seeing it from the other side of the overpass, which is in Mestre, just outside of Venice, you see the bus just basically fall off of the overpass.

[08:10:03]

Now, we don't know the reason. The investigators are looking at the possibility that the 40-year-old bus driver, who had six or seven years of experience, may have been unwell. There's also an inquiry going into the idea that perhaps when the bus fell, fell 15 meters, 30 feet onto some railroad tracks and then burst into flames, there's question as to whether the bus, which was an electric bus, its battery was the cause of those flames.

Now, the fire brigades showed up very quickly and they had to try to extract the people who were still inside the bus, but that was made very difficult by the flames that were set off. But they did manage to get out at least 15 people, but some of those who survived are still in critical condition in hospital.

Now, the mayor of Venice described the scene there as apocalyptic. But we still don't have a clear idea about what exactly happened? But, clearly, this is a shock to the city. The -- all flags in Venice have been lowered to half mask, the Italian mask -- the Italian Senate had a minute of silence to mourn the dead.

Among the dead, we understand, there's several Ukrainians. It would seem to be a very multinational group of people, including Germans, Austrians, French and Spanish, as well as, of course, the Italian driver who died in this crash. Max?

FOSTER: OK, Ben, thank you very much. Indeed, you just saw the video there. We're not going to show too much, but as Ben describes, just see it falling off and what a horrendous situation for everyone on board. Thank you, Ben.

Now, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak officially scrapping a high speed rail project to Northern England. It made the announcement a short while ago at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester. The Prime Minister laid out a new plan to reinvest every single penny in local transport projects.

The controversial decision comes ahead of a general election expected next year, where his Conservative Party is trailing the opposition Labor Party in opinion polls.

CNN's Bianca Nobilo is here with me. Thank you for joining us.

BIANCA NOBILO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thank you, Max.

FOSTER: I mean, will this help his prospects in the election?

NOBILO: He was clearly trying to present himself as a bold leader who's willing to take the tough decisions, the short-term pain for long-term gain. He mentioned that a lot. In fact, what you can see above his left shoulder there is taking long-term decisions for a brighter future. That was the point he was trying to make.

He also kept harking back to Margaret Thatcher, which in my experience of many years of watching these conferences usually means that someone can sense that they're in a little bit of trouble. And that's been the story of this conference. It's been mutinous in many respects.

There's also concern within the party from MPs I've been speaking to about this growing influence of a very right-wing organization within the Tory party that's even been calling on donors to stop funding the party until their opinions and policies are listened to more keenly.

FOSTER: OK, Bianca, thank you. Still to come, Kevin McCarthy becomes the first U.S. House Speaker to be ousted from his post. Who will replace him? And what's next for the House Republicans? We'll discuss.

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[08:15:34]

FOSTER: The U.S. House of Representatives is in chaos today, legislatively paralyzed and essentially without a leader. On Tuesday, Kevin McCarthy became the first speaker of the House to be ousted from his post after a vote orchestrated by far-right Republicans. There's no clear successor to McCarthy, who has already said he won't run again.

And a vote to elect a new speaker isn't set to take place until next week. Meanwhile, Republican Patrick McHenry has named -- has been named as the interim speaker, but his authority is pretty limited. Tuesday's vote marks a serious escalation of tensions amongst House Republicans and it comes at a very crucial time. Congress has just over 40 days now to agree on a deal to avoid a government shutdown.

Let's bring in Rina Shah, Republican strategist and former GOP senior congressional aide. Thank you so much for joining us.

RINA SHAH, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Hello, good morning.

FOSTER: We can't really talk about these issues without talking about the elephant in the room, which is always Donald Trump, of course, when you're talking about American politics. I have just seen that someone's actually nominating him to replace McCarthy. Can we just get that one dealt with first?

SHAH: Well, waking up in Washington this morning felt quite unusual. Number one, because this is completely unchartered territory that the GOP is now in. Creatures of the House like me know that there is no clear path ahead because it's never been done before.

In over 100 years, that was a time frame. It hasn't been for 100 years that have vote like this came to the floor and never before has an American speaker of the House of Representatives been ousted like this. So, Republicans want to look unified this morning. They are officially in disarray.

And it's looking like Democrats are the adults in the room because the way they were able to unify as a caucus and oust McCarthy for essentially their dislike of him with eight other Republican colleagues, that is just something that is a shock to a system.

FOSTER: Just on that, he was very critical, obviously, McCarthy, of how the Democrats went against him when he felt he was reaching out to them over a deal around Ukraine, for example, and over this budget deal. So, did they -- you know, have they undone themselves? Because actually McCarthy proved himself as someone they could work with in future. SHAH: It wouldn't be an overstatement to say that Kevin McCarthy is probably the most hated man in Washington because the Democrats really, you know, essentially fired at him for being not just disloyal because, look, McCarthy doesn't owe loyalty to the Democrats, but it was they who helped him avert a government shutdown at the 11th hour by passing a clean continuing resolution.

Now by passing that and working with Democrats to do that, Kevin McCarthy knew he was putting a speakership on the line. He knew that he would draw fire from many of the sort of far-right extreme members of his conference.

But right now, sitting in this moment, I think we ought to look back many months ago, not just to this top of -- not just to the top of the year when Kevin McCarthy was able to become speaker after a historic 15 ballots, but really essentially what that meant. It meant that he was forming a coalition government sort of.

The Republican conference is very fractured and he made promises and concessions. And why he was ousted is because eight Republicans feel that they can no longer trust him and he didn't hold those promises of funding the government through individual appropriations bills.

They say he didn't defund woke and weaponized federal programs. Also, they say that he didn't use all the available tools to restrain the Biden administration. So again, the criticism for the speaker was very harsh and I'm not surprised he's not submitting his name again for the speakership.

FOSTER: I'd just go through the most likely contenders then, because as you say, the other issue here is there's no one clearly who can step in or who has a unifying effect to effectively get the votes that it needs to get in. And just this thought about Donald Trump. I mean, is that realistic at all?

SHAH: If you look in recent history, Speaker Paul Ryan went into early retirement, Speaker John Boehner left the speakership because he didn't want to deal with populist forces who he had seen had taken some of his colleagues down. So there's been a sort of sense that a centrist cannot be speaker, but how things get done on Capitol Hill, essentially are through compromising bipartisanship.

[08:20:02]

So, there are some names being floated this morning and were last night, and I think we can expect to hear from them a bit more. Congressman Steve Scalise of Louisiana, Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio. These are right now rumored to be favorites. Of course, it's Congressman Patrick McHenry, who is the acting speaker.

He's doing purely procedural matters at this point, and he's calling for an internal vote within the GOP conference for speaker that will take next -- take place next Wednesday. But also there are some other names like Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, a millennial woman from upstate New York. She's a leader of the GOP conference right now. But going back to Scalise and Jordan, those are kind of the favorites, but they are not moderates. They are actually seen as quite to the right of McCarthy. The one thing that they have, though, Scalise, in particular, is a lot of loyalty from the staff around him, and you need a fantastic whipping operation to be the speaker of the House.

FOSTER: OK, Rina, thank you so much for joining us with that.

Still to come on CNN, police raid the homes of journalists linked to a news organization known for its scrutiny of the Indian government. We're following reaction in a live report from New Delhi for you next.

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FOSTER: In northeast India, at least five people are dead after heavy rains triggered flash flooding. Officials say three people were rescued during a search and rescue operation but 23 others is still missing. A local government said at least three bridges collapsed and more than 400 people have been moved to relief camps.

Protesters gathered in New Delhi a short while ago to speak out against a police raid targeting dozens of journalists. The journalists are linked to NewsClick, a group that has been critical of the Indian government. Police say they arrested the outlet's founder and another staffer.

Let's bring in CNN's Vedika Sud who joins me live in New Delhi. And this does follow years of tension building up between some parts of the media and the government.

VEDIKA SUD, CNN REPORTER: Absolutely, Max. And there's been widespread condemnation from journalists as well as activists over the raids conducted by the Delhi police Tuesday on the offices of NewsClick, which is a news website here in New Delhi. And like you pointed out, it has been highly critical of the Indian government under the leadership of the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Now, we were at to protest sites all afternoon here in India local time. The first was Jantar Mantar, which is in the heart of New Delhi, where there was so many students who had gathered. They have political affiliations to the left party, and they were demanding the release off the two journalists who have been arrested. One of them is the founder off NewsClick.

After that, we went to the Press Club of India, where more than 100 journalists had gathered. There was a meeting there. There was a joint statement by the journalist's body there condemning the actions of the Delhi police. It's very important here to mention that the Delhi police comes under the central government here in India's national capital.

[08:25:09]

We spoke to some journalists, Siddharth Varadarajan, who is the founding editor of The Wire is one of them. He's had these raids conducted in his homes, in his offices, and he claims and -- critics claim it's because his publication has also been critical of the Modi government.

Here's what Siddharth Varadarajan had to tell us about why he's concerned about the state of India's democracy.

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SIDDHARTH VARADARAJAN, SENIOR JOURNALIST: We are not just speaking about our own freedom. Freedom of the press is a responsibility that we discharge on behalf of the wider public. And if democracy has to survive in India, then freedom of the press is essential. And if freedom of the press is attacked, then it's clear that democracy's days in India are numbered. So this is something that worries us, bothers us, but which we are determined to keep fighting about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SUD: And it's not the first time, Max, that an anti-terrorism law, an act has been slapped against a journalist in India, in this case there, too. This is the law under which it's very difficult to get bail. Even the cops get about 90 days to file a charge sheet in such cases. It is known as a draconian law by critics here and activists here in India, and that is what has been slapped against those two journalists.

It's going to be highly tough for them to come out on bail. And the message going out, two people is also highly worrying, especially journalists, who are supposed to be the fourth pillar in a democracy.

Now, I just want to read out from the Editors Guild of India. They also came out with a comment yesterday, and I'm going to quote them here. "The investigation of specific offenses must not create a general atmosphere of intimidation under the shadow of draconian laws."

Everyone is criticizing the laws under which the two journalists have been arrested. And this comes at a time, Max, when India has slipped drastically and dramatically in the ranks of press freedom. It stands at 161 out of 180 countries under Modi's leadership, and it's just slipping further according to journalists who are now worried, like I said, about the state of India's democracy.

Back to you.

FOSTER: OK, Vedika, thank you very much indeed for joining us with that.

Thank you for watching CNN Newsroom. I'm Max Foster. World Sport is up next.

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